Many women notice they’re carrying their added weight on their body differently once they are over 40 years of age. They see it is more focused around the belly area hence why it is referred to as Belly Fat.
The problem with this belly fat, aside from the fact that women do not like how it looks, is that it creates a Catch 22 situation. This belly fat actually causes changes in the body making it even harder to lose weight – hence the Catch 22. It is not the same as fat in other areas of the body.
Belly Fat is in fact a very active tissue and by that I mean it produces over 10 different hormones. So think of growing belly fat as being analogous to growing another organ/tumor. Obviously if this organ is not meant to be in the body then any hormones being produced by it are going to have a negative impact on the fine tuned hormonal balance in the body.
Hormones are chemical messengers in our body that help our body function and keep us healthy. When blood sugar increases, hormones are released to help decrease the blood sugar levels. When we have eaten enough food hormones are released to tell our brain we are full so we stop eating. Likewise hormones are released to stimulate hunger when our body needs more food. Those are just 2 examples of how hormones work.
So belly fat is impacting the body’s ability to communicate effectively and appropriately which is why I often say Belly Fat is like having bad WiFi in the body. We all know how poorly our programs run on our computers and between devices when the WiFi isn’t working properly. This is the same with Belly Fat. As we carry more belly fat over a longer period of time, the hormones being produced by the fat negatively impacts our hormones creating an imbalance in the body.
This hormonal imbalance can obviously have an impact on health and well being but the actual catch 22 when it comes to weight loss is that this hormonal imbalance also negatively impacts the body’s ability to burn fat. This is especially true when just using more traditional methods for weight loss such as reducing calories and exercising more.
Reducing calories and increasing exercise can work more effectively when the body’s hormones are more balanced so the body will respond appropriately and burn some fat. But once there is more belly fat and it has been there for a while the body needs a different approach to be able to start breaking down the belly fat.
This explains why many women may find that their dedicated efforts to losing weight using calorie reduction and increasing exercise are not producing results.
Here are just a few examples of some of the changes to hormones that prevent the body’s ability to burn fat and also contribute to faster weight gain.
Belly Fat:
Affects appetite hormones resulting in increased hunger,
Affects insulin and insulin receptors resulting in increased blood sugar levels so more fat is created
Affects hormones that increase inflammation which increases weight
Affects the Liver which impacts glucose storage, detoxification and other hormonal balances with respect to estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.
There are several other hormones released by belly fat that have many other health implications but the ones I list above just emphasize that once belly fat builds it releases hormones that make it much harder to lose the fat – this is the catch 22 of belly fat.
Hence why many of the typical methods for weight loss often do not work, especially with age related changes in the body combined with the hormonal imbalance created by belly fat.
This was certainly my personal experience 7 years ago when I was carrying an extra 20 lbs most of which was around my belly. The usual methods for weight loss were not working at all and I knew something was wrong. That is when I discovered a much more effective method for weight loss that was still natural and based on using my own food which quickly reduced my belly by 3.5 inches in 6 weeks. I have kept the weight and inches off easily since that time because my body is back in balance and working well. Before it felt as though my body was fighting against me. I have a new and improved internal WiFi system 🙂
It is much more effective to use methods for weight loss that can effectively target that belly fat and burn it quickly. The sooner that belly fat decreases, the sooner there are less of the hormones being released by that fat. The body will come back into better balance hormonally making it easier to continue to lose weight and especially making it much easier to maintain the weight loss afterwards so there is no rebound weight gain.
Measuring progress on a weight loss plan just using the weight scale will not indicate if weight loss efforts are actually targeting belly fat. The scale could be dropping but that could be because of water loss or even worse muscle loss. The key to healthy weight loss is to ensure the belly fat is being targeted so tracking other body metrics will help guide the process. The best way to do this is to track waist and hip measurements along with weight.
In order to reduce the health risks associated with increased belly fat a woman wants her waist to be 35 inches or less and for men they need it to be 40 inches or less.
As well though it is important to look at waist size in perspective to hip size so as to adjust for different body sizes. This is where we use waist/hip ratio and take that ratio into account when assessing waist size. The healthy waist/hip ratio for women is 0.8 or less and for men it is 1.0
When losing weight do not just rely on the scale, measure waist and hip to track those changes to make sure that unhealthy belly fat is reducing. If changes are not being seen in waist measurement over a period of time then it is likely that the weight loss on the scale is not coming from that unhealthy belly fat. If belly fat is not being reduced then the body will still be under the impact of the hormones being released by the belly fat and it will continue to be imbalanced hormonally making it difficult to burn that fat and it will make it difficult to keep the weight off.
I hope you found this information helpful.If you want to learn more:
- You can book a complimentary call, and discuss your challenges, and obstacles, and together we can determine if my program is right for you.
- You can also go to my Facebook page, @DrSherBovay, where you can find and join my Private Facebook group, The FastLane Mind Body Reset Mastery Group. Here, I host Facebook lives and frequent posts where you can engage and learn more